Maryland Official Visitors Guide - 2017
History
Jim Meyer 2016-12-08 04:38:55
Named one of the best driving tours in America, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway is a stirring tribute to the courage of Harriet Tubman and those who traveled the Underground Railroad.
Gliding through historic towns and villages, farmlands, and the coastal wilderness of Caroline and Dorchester counties, this driving tour is a portal through a landscape virtually unchanged since Harriet Tubman began her daring crusade for freedom.
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center
The byway links the new Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center and more than thirty points marking touchstones of the life of “The Moses of Her People” and others. Visit the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge, and nearby Long Wharf Park to gaze out on the Choptank River. Now a place of serene beauty, its tranquil waters belie the site’s history as a landing point for slave ships.
Harriet Tubman living historian with Massachusetts 54th USCT Regiment reenactors
PHOTOS: STATE OF MARYLAND; DORCHESTER COUNTY OFFICE OF TOURISM
Immerse Yourself in History
See the restored Webb Cabin, a tiny oneroom cottage built in the 1850s, which is similar to the home where Tubman was born near Madison. Explore Linchester Mill, a potential crossing point for those seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad. Visit Courthouse Square in Denton where, in 1853, African-American residents celebrated the escape and return of Richard Potter, a free black youth who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. See the William Still Interpretive Center, which celebrates one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous station masters, and the Bucktown Village Store, where Tubman made her first bold stand for equality.
Explore Natural Beauty
Called the “Everglades of the North,” Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is a wildland of incomprehensible beauty. As a girl, Harriet Tubman visited this marsh to check muskrat traps for her master. Now you can journey along miles of hiking, biking and water trails through terrain that was both a barrier and a refuge for enslaved people on the Underground Railroad. A central point along the great Atlantic Flyway, Blackwater is home to bald eagles and herons, and vast flocks of geese that fill the sky horizon to horizon.
Discover Maryland’s African-American History
Witness the courage of African Americans and their struggle for freedom at these historic sites.
BY JIM MEYER
Maryland’s African-American experience has been inextricably woven through the fabric of its rich history. At the Annapolis City Dock, where slave ships once made port, see the Kunte Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, and honor the Roots author’s commitment to preserving and honoring African-American cultural heritage. Visit the nearby Banneker- Douglass Museum and learn of the contributions of great American thinkers and leaders like Benjamin Banneker and Frederick Douglass, whose indelible marks on the pages of history advanced the cause of freedom.
Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park, Baltimore
PHOTO: RAY STUDIOS
Visit the cabin of Josiah Henson, the man whose story inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. And witness the tragedies and triumphs of Harriet Tubman and other brave African-American travelers and conductors on the Underground Railroad Experience Trail in Sandy Spring.
At Baltimore’s National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, life-sized wax figures bring African-American history to life. The Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park and the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center offer unique perspectives on African-American contributions to industry and the birth of the American sound. At the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, experience the beauty and vibrancy of Maryland’s living African-American history.
Ghosts of the Old Line State
Tour haunted Maryland at these local landmarks.
BY JIM MEYER
From the restless shade of Edgar Allan Poe to the Confederate spirits that still haunt Point Lookout, Maryland is home to centuries of not-quite living history.
Point Lookout, Scotland
PHOTO: KONSTANTINOS MAMALIS FOR DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
The Ghost of Edgar Allan Poe
On October 3, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe, father of American horror fiction, was found, gripped by madness, at the door of his favorite tavern. Disheveled and wild eyed, the legendary poet could only repeat a single word. “Reynolds!” he called out, seemingly to some spirit of the ether. He died four days later from “congestion of the brain.” But many believe that was not the end of Poe—that his spirit fled to his childhood home just blocks away. Now at the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum, a must-visit for ghost hunters and history fans, visitors often feel a looming presence, even the occasional grip of an icy hand upon their shoulder.
“The Most Haunted Place in America”
Poe is only the most famous member of Maryland’s haunted host. Point Lookout State Park, home to a Civil War prisoner camp, is considered to be the most haunted place in America. Locals tell the tale of a spirit who wanders the beach asking anyone she encounters where to find her grave. Others tell of a confederate soldier who sprints from the old prison and dives into the swift waters of the Potomac River, disappearing until the next time the moonlight is right.
Other Fright Sites
Some quake at the story of Moll Dyer the Frozen Witch of Old St. Mary’s, whose hand prints still mark the courthouse stone of Leonardtown. Others share the tragic tale of Aloysius “Wish” Shepherd who roams the streets of Denton in his endless search for justice, while many swear they have gazed upon the ghostly regiment that still walks Bloody Lane at Antietam National Battlefield.
To explore these haunted tales and more, visit The Original Fells Point Ghost Walk in Baltimore, Annapolis Ghost Tours and Haunted Pub Crawl, and Chesapeake Ghost Walks on the Eastern Shore. Go to VisitMaryland.org for seasonal ghost tours and haunts like The Spirits of Ellicott City, Savage Mill Ghost Tours, and candlelight ghost tours of Frederick, “Maryland’s Most Haunted City.”
Baltimore’s Pride
The deeds of a daring Baltimore captain live on in Maryland’s sailing ambassador.
BY CHRIS LANDERS
The bustling shipyards of Baltimore produced some of the fastest ships the world had seen in the early 19th century. Called “Baltimore Clippers,” they became famous as privateer ships, capturing British merchant vessels during the War of 1812. Privateers (or, as their targets called them, “pirates”) mostly operated near the American coast, but the Chasseur took the fight to England, tacking a note to the door of cargo insurer Lloyd’s of London warning that the British Isles were under blockade. The ship then captured or sank 17 British ships before sailing home to Fells Point, where the Chasseur was hailed as “The Pride of Baltimore.”
Pride of Baltimore II
PHOTO: WILLIAM SHERMAN
In 1977, the city of Baltimore launched a replica of a Baltimore Clipper as a symbol of civic pride in the newly refurbished Inner Harbor. Christened the Pride of Baltimore as a tribute to the Chasseur, the ship sailed for nine years, visiting ports on the East Coast and across the Atlantic. In 1986, though, the ship sank off the coast of Puerto Rico in a sudden storm.
Soon after the news reached Baltimore, pennies and dimes collected by local schoolchildren began arriving at the Pride downtown office, and the state agreed to fund the building of a successor. The Pride of Baltimore II, launched in 1988, is larger than the first, with modern safety features hidden in the traditional design, and has traveled around the world, as far away as Russia, Japan and China.
As Maryland’s sailing goodwill ambassador, the Pride of Baltimore II is often on the move, but if you’re lucky enough to catch her at home in Baltimore, the crew offers tours and short sails on the Chesapeake. More adventurous sailors can book passage as guest crew between ports on the ship’s itinerary, and experience the thrill of a real Baltimore Clipper for themselves.
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